Eight Easy Steps
by hummer246
Summary: Story five in the iPod series... This is for you and you know who you are... Next story is with Lester, Ram, and Hector in Vegas... Please keep reviewing, I love to read what everyone writes.. Thanks for all the encouragement!
1. Chapter 1

A/N 1: Story Five in the iPod Series

A/N 2: Don't own them, just borrowing for a little while!

A/N 3: This is for a fan (I know, I have FANS! OMG!) So this is for her!

Eight Easy Steps by Hummer246

_How to stay paralyzed by fear of abandonment?__  
__How to defer to men in solve-able predicaments?__  
__How to control someone to be a carbon copy of you?__  
__How to have that not work and have them run away from you?___

_How to keep people at arm's length and never get too close?__  
__How to mistrust the ones you supposedly love the most?__  
__How to pretend you're fine and don't need help from anyone?__  
__How to feel worthless unless you're serving or helping someone?___

_I'll teach you all this in eight easy steps__  
__A course of a lifetime, you'll never forget__  
__I'll show you how to in eight easy steps__  
__I'll show you how leadership looks when taught by the best___

_How to hate women when you're supposed to be a feminist?__  
__How to play all pious when you're really a hypocrite?__  
__How to hate God when you're a prayer and a spiritualist?__  
__How to sabotage your fantasies by fears of success?___

_I'll teach you all this in eight easy steps__  
__A course of a lifetime, you'll never forget__  
__I'll show you how to in eight easy steps__  
__I'll show you how leadership looks when taught by the best___

_I've been doing research for years__  
__I've been practicing my ass off__  
__I've been training my whole life for this moment__  
__(I swear to you)__  
__Culminating just to be this this well-versed leader before you___

_I'll teach you all this in eight easy steps__  
__A course of a lifetime, you'll never forget__  
__I'll show you how to in eight easy steps__  
__I'll show you how leadership looks when taught by the best___

_How to lie to yourself and thereby to everyone else?__  
__How to keep smiling when you're thinking of killing yourself?__  
__How to numb a la holic to avoid going within?__  
__How to stay stuck in blue by blaming them for everything?___

_I'll teach you all this in eight easy steps__  
__A course of a lifetime, you'll never forget__  
__I'll show you how to in eight easy steps__  
__I'll show you how leadership looks when taught by the best___

_I'll teach you all this in eight easy steps__  
__A course of a lifetime, you'll never forget__  
__I'll show you how to in eight easy steps__  
__I'll show you how leadership looks when taught by the best_

_By Alanis Morissette_

11 Months, 2 weeks, 5 days earlier

Stephanie looked up from her plate of roast and mashed potatoes and looked across at her mother who was talking, but all Stephanie heard was, "Wonk, Wonk, Wonk" like Charlie Brown's teacher from all the holiday specials she'd seen as a kid.

She couldn't remember how she had even gotten there or what day it was. Her eyes drifted down to her hands and saw the bandages wrapped around both wrists and once again it all came flooding back to her. She took a slow deep breath and excused herself from the table. She walked down the hall and out the back door and stood on the steps to the back yard. She took deep, cleansing breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. It took five before she didn't feel the need to cry. It was taking less and less time each time she would get close to losing it; losing herself in the memories.

Frank looked out of the kitchen window and saw Stephanie standing there taking deep breaths and looked at Helen scraping dishes into the trash as she still nagged at an absent Stephanie. He shook his head and looked back out the window. Something had happened to his little girl and her mother harping on her wasn't helping the situation.

He saw her take a deep breath and square her shoulders as if she had the weight of the world on them now, but he also saw that she was dry-eyed and had a smile on her face as she turned and came back inside.

"Mom, I need to go. Sorry."

"Stephanie, when are you finally going to see that you need to give up that awful job? I mean look at you! You're covered in cuts, scrapes, and bruises! I mean, no man is going to want to marry a woman who comes home with a black eye and a busted lip. You are going to be covered in scars if you don't stop soon! You mark my words! No one is going to want you! You need to listen to me!" Helen yelled as she started washing the dinner dishes.

Frank just watched Stephanie's face and watched as none of the words his wife yelled at her reached her. It was as if Stephanie was just out of their reach and they fell in front of her body instead of hitting her.

"Yes, Mom, I understand," was Stephanie's only response to anything Helen said to her. She was almost robot-like to Frank. He decided to call someone who would know what happened to his Pumpkin. He hugged Stephanie goodbye when she left a few minutes later and shook his head at his wife still nagging about Pumpkin getting married or despairing over her ever finding a man to want her with how she looked. He could see that she was in pain and when he hugged her he could feel her ribs and worried even more.

Frank waited until the next day when he left to drive his cab to call.

"Rangeman, can I help you?"

"Tank, please."

"Is he expecting this call?" Frank rolled his eyes at the question. Of course Tank wasn't expecting this call; he wasn't expecting to make it in the first place so Tank couldn't be expecting it! Dumbass!

"Yes," He answered just to be a smart-ass.

"One moment please." Damn the guy didn't even ask his name! What kind of security place was this?

"Good Morning, Mr. Plum. What can I do for you?"

"How did you know it was me?"

"We are a security company, Mr. Plum. Of course we knew it was you, plus we have caller I.D."

"Oh, of course, um… I was wondering if you could meet me for lunch or something today."

"Is this about Stephanie?"

"Yes, can you meet me for lunch?"

"What about now? Can you meet me at Shorty's in ten minutes?"

He answered in the affirmative and hauled it over to Shorty's Diner and Bar. He had just sat down in the back corner booth when Tank walked in.

"Thanks for meeting with me."

"No problem, I just hope you will be able to tell me what is going on with Stephanie."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Plum, there's not a whole lot I can tell you. She showed up at the office about two days ago with a bunch of cuts and scrapes, really dehydrated and said she got hurt chasing a skip. Her injuries are somewhat consistent with what she told us, all except her hands. There is no way she hurt her hands the way they are by falling, from running after a skip. But she just says that she fell and changes the subject."

"I've noticed that she spaces out, taking deep breaths and then kinda snaps back into herself. Are you seeing any of that?"

"Not really. She did come to some of us asking to train her in our specialty. I know she had her first lesson today with Ram, our Weapons Specialist. He told me it was like Stephanie has had a personality transplant. The girl who was so scared of guns was picking all of them up and watching everything he did with complete focus. He said she shot and hit the target every time, with her eyes open. And for Steph, that's saying something."

Frank sighed and sipped his coffee, trying to figure out what had happened to Stephanie because even though she was saying that she was fine, she wasn't.

"Thanks, just keep me in the loop if she slips and says something and I'll do the same."

Tanked nodded while Frank threw a ten on the table and left, leaving Tank even more confused about Stephanie's behavior. She was upbeat, smiling, and joking with the guys like always, but according to Mr. Plum she wasn't like that with her family. Something had to have happened, maybe her mother harping on her every second was finally wearing her down. He'd keep watching her for now and see what he could see. He knew she would let something slip; Stephanie never could keep a secret worth shit.

Stephanie looked at the training schedule in her hands and mentally calculated how long it was going to take her to put her plans in motion. The ringing of her cellphone made her head tilt.

"Yeah?"

"Steph, it's Eddie. Did you have a skip by the name of Ben Smith last week?"

"Yeah, but I never caught up with him. Why?"

"They just pulled him out of the River. We just got done searching his house and it wasn't too good. He had chains and stuff nailed to a wall in a back bedroom… It was pretty gruesome; blood was all over that room."

"When I kinda took a look around his house," She heard Eddie groan at that admission, "everything looked fine and I didn't see anything like that. I did cut my palm on the back door's window when it mysteriously broke though," she explained in case they found her DNA in the house. Eddie signed loudly over the phone.

"Ok, what did you touch so we can rule you out?"

"I don't know Eddie, the door handle, I was in the bathroom trying to clean up my palm, and I was bleeding like a stuck pig everywhere. I remember checking all the rooms but I can't remember if I had to open all the doors or not. I just searched his house looking for him like always."

"OK, thanks Steph, if we find your blood and DNA we can rule you out. Talk to you later."

"Later, Eddie"

Stephanie laid the phone down and wrote down on the schedule Eighteen Months as her timeline. Now the cost of everything was going to be a problem. Maybe she could start picking up high bond skips and playing the lotto. With any luck she could make the needed 1.2 million it would cost, but she would keep calculating as time went by. A lot could happen in eighteen months.

The lynchpin to all her plans was Ranger: everything was resting now in his hand. It was his decision. When he came back from his mission hopefully he could tell her that he wanted them to be a couple. If his answer was yes, then her timeline would have to be adjusted, but if he said they could only be friends, then it was eighteen months from now that they would meet the new Stephanie they had created.

The one that had no fear left to feel and was forged in a three-day hell by their own hands. Her lips turned up in a smile when she thought about their faces seeing hers. Oh yes, she couldn't wait.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey Everyone,

I just wanted everyone to know that I have not abandoned these stories or the series... My Father had a long illness and passed away so I have been dealing with that.. I want to thank all the people who have emailed me and pm'd me asking how I was or seeing what was going on with the series. It sounds weird but it always made me smile that you guys were really interested in seeing how this series is going to turn out!

Thanks for all the encouragement and well wishes that have been sent my way..

Thanks

Hummer246


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